Question: $3$ is what percent of $5$ ?
Solution: Having a percent of something means that you get that percent out of every $100$ We can set up a proportion to find out what percent of $5$ we need to take to get $3$ $ \dfrac{{\text{percent}}}{100} = \dfrac{{\text{part}}}{{\text{whole}}}$ Which things do we know, and what are we trying to find? We are trying to find the ${\text{percent}}$ . Is $5$ the ${\text{part}}$ or the ${\text{whole}}$ The $5$ is the ${\text{whole}}$ . This means the ${\text{part}}$ is $3$ $ \dfrac{{\text{percent}}}{100} = \dfrac{{3}}{{5}}$ If we multiply the denominator of the fraction on the right by $20$ , it will be the same denominator of the fraction on the left. To keep things equal, let's also multiply the numerator on the right by $20$ $ \dfrac{{\text{percent}}}{100 } = \dfrac{{3 \times 20}}{{5 \times 20}}$ $ \dfrac{{\text{percent}}}{100 } = \dfrac{{60}}{{100}}$ $ {\text{percent}} = {60}$ So $3$ is $60\%$ of $5$.